The Skeleton Blog

The internet is finally in my house. Glorious glorious bits and bytes!!

As the Thanksgiving season closes I'd like to say what I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for my health, being able to study in England, the friends and family that have helped me pull this little stunt off, and Skype for letting me talk to a bunch of them the past few days.

I'm going to do a bit of blog commentary here due in large part to my grandmother. I was talking to the whole clan Thanksgiving afternoon and Grandma was telling me how much she liked reading this blog. She also chimed in with her opinion about my episode with nitrous oxide (haven't touched it since, get your hands away from the phone, don't call NO2 Anonymous) and I thought to myself, maybe I shouldn't be as comprehensive in my blogging. Not just for this, mind you, it turns out I'll need to give the address of this to my department head for examination, and it might not hurt for me to clean it up a bit.

I was already picking parts of my life to cut out of the text when my grandma had to open her mouth again. She told me she was getting to know me better via the blog than all the years we've been around each other. Let me digress by confessing I do have one qualm with blogs, and that's making sure you don't write anything about your friends they don't already know. Example: if you hang out one night and eat chips (read: french fries) with a homemade dip and tell the host it's great, you do NOT write about how much you hated it on your blog. It is all too easy to become someone else when you're online, and the instant your online self messes with your IRL (In Real Life) self you're in big trouble. So here I was, I could either reevaluate my blogging to make it a bit more family/ professional friendly, or I can keep it up and stay close with the friends and family back home. The ones that don't comment on my blog. The very same. You know who you are.

I'm gonna keep posting the way I post. It may be weird getting to know a relative through online reading, but the point is we get to know each other, method be damned. As for the evaluation, blogging's way too young a medium to grade, so I challenge them to tell me I'm doing mine wrong.

Now back to the important things, like WHERE'S MY TURKEY?????????????

Admiral, there be blogs here!

I haven't written lately. I apologize, but in my defence this has been a really busy week.

If you visit bloc-online, you'll see what I've been up to this past week. This is the production website of the Professional Writing course, where everyone submits pieces based on a given theme OR about the craft of writing. Myself, James, and Stephen from my course had to update just about everything on the site this week, 95% of which done on Friday. We were exhausted and hungry afterwards, and after a footlong and a beer each (give or take), we were just about passed out. We were lucky to make it back to our respective homes; if we'd all went to one, people might talk. Still, I think it looks pretty good, and aside from the bit error and odd mistake we're getting kudos all around. Not bad at all.

The same day I had to yell at HSBC again. They sent me a letter saying they got my standing order and would send my landlord the money for last month as well as this month and be sure to give them an extra £3000 as a Christmas bonus next month, all without me needing to do a thing. "Aw, gee, let me thin-NO!!!!!!!!!!!!" Once I explained the situation they were all apologies and politeness and all of that, so I appreciate that they're at least willing to admit and address the problem, but exactly at what point will I feel my money's in safe hands? Anyone? You, in the back? No? Dang.

Saturday was my night to do the house cookoff. I went for my personal strength and made an italian meal: spaghetti, sause, meatballs, salad, garlic-bread, wine, all in no particular order and huge quantities. I did music, low lighting, the whole works. I overstretched myself a bit toward the end so things didn't come together as smoothly as it might, but everyone liked the meal, so I did good.

This week's going okay so far. Singled out a bit in class, but nothing bad, just me doing a focus no one else is even really well versed in. Stupid me and my stupid unique dreams. First assignment this week is 'Do the same thing only with this week's lecture in mind'; simple enough. I should be booking my flight back the UK from Christmas vacation, but I really don't want to. I should be afraid that once I get home I won't want to leave again, espeically after the time I had getting to the UK before. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow.

A neat little scrapblog

Okay, pictures pictures pictures. Yesterday I put up a quick pic of me as Neo (or a drug dealer if you ask Duncan).

Here’s Joanna and Katriona dressed for under-the-sea success (jellyfish and mussel respectively)


Here you’ll see Jenny brandishing her guns


One of our hosts last Saturday, Andy, doing… I really don’t know


Duncan and Liam sharing a drink under hats


Another of our hosts, Elfrea, chatting with Jenny


Do I look pretty?


Another host. This is either Pete or Tink


That ain’t for whipped crème


I’m not sure I want to know what Liam’s dreaming here


Once again I am delegated the task of footrest


We were all a bit like this towards the end


Joe trying to look daper


Liam fell asleep, I am resigned to my fate


There’s no way you’d believe me


I would have had pics from my first true Guy Fawkes celebration, but I had the misfortune of missing every one I went to by mere minutes. Maybe the powers above think I’m not safe around bonfires.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. One of my student loan checks finally came through, so now I’m not scraping by on my savings anymore! I finally got me and DHL on the same page: I’ll have to pay them the £200 for now, but I can get that back directly from Customs for mistaking my laptop for saleable goods. I finished two pieces of writing and bought a new set of local ales. Not much otherwise, but I’m happy!

I'm a little blog tease

But no more. Let's see if I heard right and Blogger will auto-resize pics.

What you should see about is a pic of me as The One, the only, Neo fromthe Matrix (the FIRST one, not that 2 or 3 bullcrap).

We've got a ticket to BLOG!

I'm a bit behind on my blogging. The excuse I gave to my folks on Friday was that I was going to gather material over the weekend and make a real entry, not just filler. Holy crap, did THAT ever succeed?!?!

Friday was pretty tame. Called the parents, got a new battery for my phone, got Wuthering Heights audiobook from the library so I don't have to try and read the whole thing in a day, good things. Found out HSBC screwed up my standing order and I'd have to pay my rent in person and the internet guy found a new reason not to put internet in our house, bad things.

Saturday I finished the rough drafts of my two pieces for this week with plans to go to a Guy Fawkes (or Bonfire Night) celebration, which is cancelled so we can all go to the bigger one the next night. We still are due to get together that night for beer and fun, so I'm cool. Having found no good excuse to put it on, I go out in my Neo costume which turned out to be a great idea. Not only was I looking very badass, but I also had on two-three layers of clothes to guard agains the 40-ish temps. Go me! We have two beers, I have a steak-and-ale pie, then we all go back to Frea's house. Hoo boy.

After stopping at ASDA (England's Walmart) for booze and snacks we go to Frea's which is this nigh-palatial house tucked really deep into the woods. Tons of space, big yard, the works. While we drink and get to know her boyfriend Andy and son Oscar (who is a mini-Freya in almost every way, it's cool) someone fires up "Singstar". This is a game for the PS2 that comes with two mikes and is essentially kareoke with a point system. You know, I'd always wondered if my aversion to kareoke came from fear of being a bad singer or fear of being infront of people. That night I learned, for sure, it was the former. People over hear seem to love my American accent, but the machines obviously don't. Along with copious amounts of alcohol are passed around balloons filled with NO2. You're reading that right: Laughing Gas. I won't go into the more amusing stories of what happened, I'll just post pictures later. Sweet, beautiful pictures. We slept over there that night and hilarity ensued.

I woke up the next morning very lethargic and remembering this wacked-out dream where a cute Norwegian girl from the International Group texted me wanting to hang out sometime. When I finally found my phone I discovered that part actually happened. Then I found my camera and discovered some other things actually happened. Gotta take the good with the bad, I guess.

Once everyone was up and semi-coherent we spent the morning playing Texas Hold 'Em and waiting for the cab. I know card games pretty well, and Texas Hold'Em's a simple one once you get it, but knowing card games and being good at them are two different beasts. Did I mention we all put a fiver in on the game? Yeah, might've been important to mention that. When we finally got back home Duncan was kind enough to lend me a couple of movies to veg out to while he tried to achieve a coma state. We went out that night to see the fireworks and saw a few little ones, but by the time we got to the bigshow it had already ended. What. The. Fuck. We could walk through the smoke of the fireworks like it was a thick fog and they're done in seven minutes? And I didn't see a single effegy light up! I'm left unsatisfied. On that note, we went back to Freya's that night for more poker and nitrous oxide, and let's just say the best part for me was the NO2. Well, I did call one bluff and won one big hand, but that was it.

I've been pretty productive this morning. Got my rent paid, will be going to town later for food and to make one last stab at getting the standing order in. I got my phone topped off and picked up a pack of Munchies. I need to proofread my pieces for this weekend and get a dent taken out of Wuthering Heights too. The fun don't stop in Cornwall, you just gotta grab on as it comes by.